1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a monitor system of vehicle outside for detecting a distance between a vehicle and a three-dimensional object existing in front of the vehicle based on information from an image and an information derived from a laser radar, and to method of monitoring of vehicle outside.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, technologies relating to an advanced safety vehicle (ASV) have been positively developed and some of the technologies have been in practical use. The advanced safety vehicle includes a TV camera, a laser radar, and like mounted thereon, detects preceding vehicles and obstructs, determines a degree of danger of collision therewith, and gives an alarm to a driver. And the vehicle is stopped by being automatically applied with a brake or automatically increases or decreases its running speed so as to keep a safe distance between the vehicle and a preceding vehicle.
As one of these technology, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 6-230115 discloses a technology composed of two types of devices for detecting a distance between the vehicle, that is, cameras and an millimeter wave radar, and detects an accurate distance between the vehicles by using the data of the device that is appropriately selected according to a change of a traveling state and has a higher degree of reliability.
However, the conventional technology described above has a problem in that it is difficult to promptly process a lot of image data and to execute a precise control with instant responsiveness. This is because a complicated calculation is required to determine the degree of reliability of data obtained by the cameras and that of the data obtained by the millimeter wave radar, and thus an excessively long calculation time is necessary to select data having a higher degree of reliability after the above degrees of reliability have been determined.